Bradley was still on West Coast time and so wasn’t tired, so he, his father, and Hal Briggs walked around the White House and the Capitol Mall until after ten p.m. On their return, it was Hal who noticed the first one: a plainclothed agent standing inside the lobby across from the hotel entrance. Several members of the hotel staff looked apprehensively at them as they went past, then smiled and nodded nervously. As Patrick walked by, the first agent spoke into his sleeve. Another agent was at the top of the stairs; another was standing at the door to Patrick’s suite of rooms. The Secret Service agent nodded to Patrick and opened the door for him; he stopped Hal long enough to take his .45-caliber automatic from him before he stepped into the room.

“I should have known you weren’t going to be tired,” President Thomas Thom said, rising from the chair as Patrick entered. “How are you, General McLanahan?”

“Fine, sir,” Patrick replied stonily. He looked at his son. “Bradley, this is the President of the United States, Thomas Thom. Mr. President, my son, Bradley James.”

“How do you do, Bradley?” Thom asked. He extended his hand, and Bradley shook it, then stepped back to be beside his father.

“Who are those guys?” Bradley asked, pointing to the Secret Service agents inside the room.

“Those are Secret Service agents,” Thom replied. “They’re called the Presidential Protection Detail. They watch out for me.”

Bradley pointed to Hal Briggs, David Luger, and Chris Wohl. “Those are my uncles,” he said, “and they watch out over my dad.”

“I know they do—and they do a very good job,” Thom agreed. Patrick’s sisters came and took Bradley into their room, closing the door behind them.

“I’m sorry about Wendy,” Thom said. “I wish I had gotten to know her like President Martindale did. She sounded like an extraordinary woman.”

“She was,” Patrick said woodenly.

“I’m off to Israel tomorrow, then Egypt, and probably to Libya,” Thom said. “Muhammad Sanusi is going to be proclaimed the monarch of Libya, the true Idris the Second— that’s something that hasn’t happened in over fifty years, so I’d like to be there, if we can set up security in time. His first official act is going to be a call for national elections— and he says his name won’t be on the ballot. He says he’s happy just being a Libyan again. Libya will be a constitutional monarchy.”

“So I heard.”